Asunto: National Team

Might make a notice anyway to give people plenty of time, we take on Canada in week 8 in an U21 game.

I can already think of the starting pair of strikers, the goalkeepers and a few of the defenders/midfielders but there are still plenty of spots available, so if you have any of the players that pass the requirements on the NT page (haven't been updated since last season, but are still the same anyway) for U21's then your player may be in with a shot.

Particularly interested in hunting down midfielders as we're a bit short in that department atm.

great match cometer :D

Definitely a great match to watch, certainly got my money's worth!

That was a good game to watch with a good result at the end considering their standing...
The NT got some luck yesterday and I dont think they stole the point of the draw... they deserved it...

Although I'm far from being an expert, I noticed we caught them off-side a few times (4) in the 1st half and none in the second I think... if the defense is too slow too react then the offside trap can work, although risky! But I found Ando very good... I hope he gets plenty of points despite the 4 goals...

and that '57 screamer.. what a nice goal :)

Argh!!! Server outages... analysis... lost... argh!!! Here goes, 2nd time lucky...


There were some fantastic individual performances this game, saved our bacon in what was IMO a very weak tactic defensively. Brazil didn't need to open us up, we did it all by ourselves.

- Ando: still my hero
- Willis: week to week brilliance, we can't take him for granted
- Byers and Hirons: looked great against a world class defence

Aside from Ando roosting the ball into touch numerous times, the players shone this week. For the first time I've seen, they overcame a poor match-up positionally to stick it to an impressive team.

Put this criticism in the context of cometer being a master tactician with high standards. It was a credit to his nous that we got the point but I haven't been quite so uneasy watching an NT game. I felt more exposed than Peter Hore looking on as our back-line opened up inviting the poorest of through-balls to penetrate.

When the ball was played to our defensive wing, the defender ran out to cover which left just 2 covering the strikers. It was obviously intended that Burns would fall back to support, but with the back-line retreating he had no chance and was left chasing the uncatchable hare.
When we won the ball on the wing and played it forward, Burns would charge forward leaving a huge hole for a counter-attack while the def-wing sat in limbo not covering the wing, not covering the centre. Brazil need no further invitation to slot a through-ball to the feet of their highly capable strikers, leaving our DEFs out of position and confused.
That's why the DEFs were so slow to respond, they had conflicting orders.

So that was a scary game to watch. But promising to see the players step up.


While being a cracker of a game to watch, it also had some hilarious moments. Highly entertaining.

Yeah the defense didn't execute as intended. What was meant to happen more or less was when a through ball was passed our defenders were meant to go from

X X X to XX X to cover the ball coming through the left gap, or X XX going through the other gap. Most matches this has worked fine and has been one of the reasons why we've kept a lot of through balls out. This game for whatever reason, they didn't close in as they were meant to, perhaps they may have been already somewhat out of position, or else the pass was too quick (shouldn't have been that case though), I'll take a look at the match later in the week and compare it to what the tactic was saved as to see if there are any mistakes on my part in all the tweaking of the tactic.

Yeah, Burns was meant to drop back in to make it 3 defenders marking the two strikers but I think he didn't drop in quick enough due to how quickly they got to the corner, as he never got time to get level with our defense line to support. Didn't notice that on first viewing as much though, but this was caused from the next layer being far too offensive which I've stated. For some reason, it didn't register the changes I made to drop them back almost covering the gaps of the defense, but the server was unstable at best during the time I was making the changes, it may not have saved and as a result didn't play.

I still think had that been where I wanted it to the defense wouldn't have looked so unsettled but I can't justify any further without being able to replay that game, which getting the draw I don't know if I really would want to anyway :p.

I bet my beer that all Brazil users will remember Willis for long, long time :D

GREAT result cometer, I want more of that! :)

Side is set for the game against Canada today. Some have already commented, but it was a deliberate move to wait to around now to promote some players. The tactic has been ready for some time, but I just wanted to take away some time for the opposition to work out what we were going to do :).

Will be a few tweaks to the tactic between now and kickoff.


Also in other news, have arranged a friendly against Guatemala in week 1 (so that's when we'll use our competition side, which also conveniently rests 1st team players ahead of the world cup the following week (assuming we get there)).

Well as already stated we take on Canada in an U21 match. Think this could be a close match because our U21 side isn't looking as good as it has in past seasons. I know Canada have a few holes in their U21 side as well so maybe we might get to exploit that somewhat.

The aim of this game is to win and give some caps to some new players (there's a fair few of them, but also a fair few played U21's last season). At the end of the day though as long as it's a close fight I'll be happy. We've held the unofficial #1 title longer than I've expected and although it would be nice to retain it again, it won't be the end of the world if we lose it but I'm hoping that won't happen.

I'll post the lineup in around 20minutes anyway as it's a friendly so it's not too damaging if the list goes up.

Might add this is going to be a game with the new animations, so although it's not meant to actually do anything different, it might add to a more interesting viewing.

Last time we took on Canada we got away with a 3-3 draw. That was an U21 match I think 2 seasons ago now. O'Neill was the shining light that day. Hopefully our strikers get to dictate terms. Laufer has genuinely gone for a more attacking approach, often going in with 3 strikers and having the defense push up a fair way. This though has probably been influenced largely by the group they are in and the amount of weakish teams they've had to take on. Wouldn't really surprise me if they went in with this formation again, especially if Laufer hasn't managed much time during the week, but if they've found time a change of tactic is likely. I've tried to capitalize a bit on some of the "issues" I picked up from skimming over their games, I hope that these "issues" haven't been picked up on because they could work in our favour quite significantly if they are once again present :).
(editado)

Ok the lineup for today's match is:


1. Carl Pottier - think most knew this one
2. Jamie Whitley - debut match
3. Chris Deeley - seen him in U21's last season
4. Denis Wood - seen him in U21's last season
5. Denis Graham - seen him in U21's last season
6. Clayton Walker - debut match
7. Naum Kalac - seen him in U21's last season
8. Adrian Hunter - seen him in U21's last season
9. Glen Gardiner - seen him in U21's last season
10. Jose Maras - think everyone knew this one :p
11. Stephen Wirrpanda - debut match

12. Brett Goodwin - debut selection
13. Loyd Coveny - has played a competition match earlier this season
14. Jason Stuart - debut selection
15. Josip Puca - debut selection
16. George Bowen - debut selection

We'll see what happens in a minute or two :).

hi there.

I'm sorry , i disappear from this forum , but i had lot of things to do in real life. Today , i'll see Australia match because i want to see new flash animations.

Good Luck aussies!!!

hopefully we go alright, we have a few areas of weakness though in our U21's but fortunately strikers aren't one of them.

Well we ended up going down. Not really surprised given our midfield, it really is quite terrible. Similarly once Graham started tiring during the 2nd half, we kept getting beaten on the flanks. Our strikers missed some good chances in the game though and that cost us as Canada were able to finish their chances better then what we did.

Pretty disappointing to lose that. Looked like a 50-50 game but the shape of play just didn't open up the chances for us. Could have gone either way.

I think you'll find their midfield > our midfield => we lost.

Think that was the major influence. Our tactical discipline let us down to with that 2nd goal, the 2 players should have been level with Canada's strikers which would have prevented that follow up tap in, but not to be.

yup. Maras with his low tech is just 'addicted' to through passes...